The Lucha Underground Male vs Female Debate

[Hanley!]

I'm not sure we've really talked about this on here before. To be honest, I don't even know if anyone here even watches Lucha Underground. I do watch the show occasionally and love the presentation, but it's not a must watch show for me every week because I'm not a lucha fan. Still, I always recommend it to wrestling fans that I know and try to talk it up.

Anyway you don't even really need to watch Lucha Underground to have an opinion on this particular debate, so hopefully a few people will chime in.

Basically in Lucha Underground, the women occasionally wrestle against the men. There's no women's championship (at least the last I checked). The company is not divided on gender lines. Any wrestler can be booked to wrestle any other wrestler. The female wrestlers can challenge for the Lucha Underground championship. It's all fair game.

A lot of people have a problem with this, because they're uncomfortable watching men hit women. It's basically the same issue people had with Chyna wrestling against the men, but done on a much larger scale.

My question is, how do you guys feel about it? Would this put any of you off watching the show?

I'll chime in with my thoughts in a little bit.

[Circled Square]

No. I don't see the point.

[Hanley!]

@Headlesspete surely has an opinion on this.

[Headlesspete]

@Headlesspete surely has an opinion on this.

Hell yeah i do!

I'm a little on the fence actually. Lets be honest, from a basic scientific realism point of view, men are stronger than woman, and 9/10 the male would beat the female. Its not something we can argue. However, this is wrestling, a world in which the Irish Whip is used in every match. We leave realism at the door and accept that yeah, thing happen that just don't make that much sense. So i think the debate on if its realistic or what not, isn't something i'd worry too much about, although there is a certain line.

Look at Chyna, Kharma, Beth Phoenix...woman that to me, could believable battle some of the men and give them a ruin for their money. I'm aware if they faced off with the likes of Triple H, Kane, Undertaker etc.....again it becomes a stretch to believe these woman could win. But i don't think its hard to bevel these woman couldn't fight some of the lesser built men. I think Ronda has proven just how tough woman can be, and if WWE could somehow find a woman like that, I'd have no problem watching her compete against the men.

As for folks being uncomfortable watching a man hit a woman, i can't say I've ever felt that watching when Chyna used to compete. I though it was a fantastic novelty that to this day, could still; be capitalized on, again assuming they use the right woman. Hell, if i were WWE, I'd be having Nia Jax destroy male jobbers pretty soon (not WWE jobbers, indie jobbers).

[Hanley!]

Personally, I hate seeing women wrestle men in WWE. Because it demeans their women's division. It sends a really horrible message that the females on their roster are so inferior to the males. So I have to strongly disagree with you there, Pete. Someone as green and mediocre as Nia Jax is in no way above the women's division. I never want to see her face off against the guys ever.

In Lucha Underground, it's a different story. Because there is no women's division, females fighting against the males isn't the exception. Putting a woman against a man doesn't make the rest of the women look inconsequential. So I don't have the same problem with women fighting men in that promotion.

I also don't really find it uncomfortable to watch. In real life, male on female violence is bad obviously. But so is male on male violence. So is female on male violence. Fighting is not something that should be celebrated in general, so I don't think it's only male on female violence that should make people uncomfortable.

I do understand that it seems tougher to watch a weaker person being bullied by a stronger person, and that women are on average weaker than men. But we see huge men fighting much smaller men in wrestling all the time. And people don't have much of a problem with that. I don't see how female vs male matches are much different.

On the other hand, as a society we really do view male on female violence as a massive taboo. So while I don't have a big problem with Lucha Underground doing it, I kinda feel like maybe they're a bit ahead of their time with it. And not really in a good way. It attracts a lot of negative publicity and does seem to put people off. So while I don't personally have a problem with it, and might actually like it quite a bit if the public reacted to it differently, I kinda wish they weren't doing it because I think it might be holding them back. If that makes any sense.

Also, while some of their female performers are cool, Sexy Star (positioned as their biggest female name) drives me nuts. I really don't like her at all.

[Westcoastvibes]

I dont mind watching when its a skill based bout. When the performers are built in such a way that the match is believable then gender should not matter. On LU they have/had Son of Havoc, Angelico, and Evalisse as the Trios champs, this worked because Evalisse is built as being one bad ass woman and the nature of the trios matches allowed for her to be used to showcase that. But when she went 1/1 with Mill it was uncomfortable, bad ass or not Evalisse could never defeat Mil Muertes bassed on the way each are built. It would be like Trish or Lita facing off against Brock for the wwe title.

So in a nutshell, if the match is skill bassed and the performers are somewhat equal in size then not a problem but when you do a david vs Goliath scenario with david being female and Goliath just punching and kicking then it becomes a awkward situation to watch.

[Daz]

I don't mind it generally. I think it got to be a bit much when they did the Taya/Cage No DQ match a few weeks ago, but even then, I didn't put me off watching the show.

From a realism standpoint, in a show featuring a man dragon, a human time travelling rocket man and a dude possessed by an evil Aztec demon god, a woman beating a man in a fight hardly seems to matter at all.

[The Legend]

I'm opposed to it for a litany of reasons. First, yeah it does make me uncomfortable watching men fight women. From a social stand point it's just not something I can get behind. As for it being wrong for men to fight men in the real world too, yeah that's true, but I go into wrestling to escape reality. A huge part of why I ever got into and why I still get into wrestling is it gives me an escape and a place to see all the assholes in this world that get away with their crap on a daily basis finally get their asses beaten and handed to them. Seeing a woman bullied in that world isn't what I'm hoping to see.

Second, Steve's absolutely right that taking women out of the women's division belittles that division. It's the same thing that killed the cruiserweight division on a different scale.

I also feel like particularly in WWE (I don't watch LU or anything else at the moment when it comes to wrestling), when they go this route it totally defeminizes the woman involved. They almost make them seem like more of a man and less of a woman. Just because you are strong doesn't make you less of a woman.

Finally, I feel like they go about it the wrong way entirely. WWE wrestlers are really fit. They spend a lot of time working out. Even the guys that aren't quite as built as others, work out a ton and are really strong. Realistically, stronger than a woman could ever naturally get to. No woman in WWE could physically match froma strength level. So why do they constantly have women that can only match from a physical stand point? I think I'd find it more believable if they found the female version of Rey Mysterio or someone like Lita where they can fly around faster than the bigger man and attack it from a speed stand point (a place where she could realistically have an advantage).

[Hanley!]

But when she went 1/1 with Mill it was uncomfortable, bad ass or not Evalisse could never defeat Mil Muertes bassed on the way each are built.

I'm not discouraging your opinion or anything, but is there really much difference between her fighting Mil and someone like Fenix or Rey, who are also very small? We've seen guys like Mysterio and recently Styles beat much larger opponents in WWE. Is it just a strength thing, or is there more to it?

I also feel like particularly in WWE (I don't watch LU or anything else at the moment when it comes to wrestling), when they go this route it totally defeminizes the woman involved. They almost make them seem like more of a man and less of a woman. Just because you are strong doesn't make you less of a woman.

I don't have some of the same issues with the female vs male stuff that you do, but I find this point interesting. And it actually is kinda offensive when you think about it - that strong women are always compared to men. Which in a way is just as ridiculous as acting like the bearded Hornswoggle is an infant, just because he's short (which obviously they also did). There's no reason for physical strength to be connected to masculinity.

Like Pete said that he wouldn't mind seeing Nia Jax fighting with then men - she's one of the less talented female performers in the company and not ready to be singled out for that kind of gimmick or push, but because she's larger and stronger than the other women in the company, she's obviously the one that comes to mind. Because WWE have been doing stuff like that with the more muscular women for years now.


This is one of the reasons I have less of a problem with females vs males in Lucha Underground. Because the women can all work against the men, none of them are presented as masculine. They're allowed to retain their femininity and still be badass. Which is cool.

I'm still kinda on the fence about the whole thing, but it's interesting getting people's takes on it here.